GENERAL QUEVEDO.
(From a photograph taken at Cochabamba.)
The “Corralistas” were led by Dr. Casimiro Corral, minister of home government and foreign affairs under the presidency of General Morales, and seemed to me to embrace the most talented men of the country. This party was, however, singularly unfortunate, not being popular with the lower orders. Its leader had to expatriate himself to the town of Puno, which, together with Tacna, seems to be the refuge of disappointed Bolivian revolutionists. The government of the day did not, however, come out of the dispute with Dr. Corral with any great éclat, as they gained a very bloodless victory over the gallant doctor and some of his adherents, who, to the number of about twenty, were holding a conference in the doctor’s house at La Paz on a certain evening in September, 1874. The meeting probably was a political one, but there was no immediate danger of a disturbance of the public peace from the fact that politics were being discussed. However, the government determined that the assembling of a caucus opposed to their own régime was a movement that must at once be suppressed vi et armis, so they sent a general in command of a company of infantry, with a field-gun, which they loaded with grape shot and laid point blank on Dr. Corral’s front door. Then, after a flourish of bugles, the general summoned the doctor and his friends, mostly young men, to surrender, and upon their declining to open the said front door, the cannon was discharged, and a way made for the entrance of the soldiers. Then, whilst part of the troop fired from the street at the closed windows, the remainder entered, firing upwards through the floor, so that the gallant doctor and his adherents were exposed to a curious style of cross-fire. Of course, resistance was out of the question, and Dr. Corral, with about half a dozen of his friends, after being well buffeted by the soldiery, and after witnessing the sack and destruction of the contents of the house, were marched off to the military prison, where they remained until they could raise sufficient funds to pay their jailers for conniving at their escape. Occurrences such as these are very frequent in Bolivia, notwithstanding that it is supposed to enjoy the free liberty of republican institutions.
The third party in Bolivia has been in power for about three years, and therefore has had a long term of office, although it has hard work to keep its place. The terms “Rojos,” or “Reds,” and “El partido Ballivian” are somewhat indiscriminately applied to this section of public opinion, which includes many independent members, as well as many of the supporters and co-political religionists of the lately deceased President Don Adolfo Ballivian. At the time I write of, it was nominally headed by Dr. Tomas Frias, who was apparently far too old to be at the head of a turbulent republic, and he was evidently only a puppet in the hands of his able minister of “all work,” Dr. Mariano Baptista, one of the cleverest men Bolivia has ever produced. However, Dr. Frias and his “alter ego,” Dr. Baptista, have lately been jockeyed out of the reins of government, and exiled from the country by an unprincipled adventurer, one General Hilarion Daza, whose advent to power must universally be allowed to be the greatest misfortune that could possibly have happened to the republic. He commenced life, I have been credibly informed, as a “mozo,” or waiting-boy, in the house of an Englishman in Sucre. He was then a tailor for a short time, after which he became fired with military ardour, and, joining the army, his audacity and unscrupulousness made him so useful to his first patron, General Melgarejo, that he passed rapidly from the appointment of “full private” to that of “general of division.” Arrived at this position, he took the earliest opportunity of deserting his benefactor, and selling himself and his battalion to General Morales, after whose death by the hand of his son-in-law, Daza became generalissimo of the army, and subsequently minister of war to President Frias. Being thus practically in command of the republic, he soon usurped the supreme power, for notwithstanding that at the commencement of the last Quevedistic movement he voluntarily took an oath to support the civil power of the state, exemplified in the person of Dr. Frias, he so manipulated matters that poor old Dr. Frias was driven into exile, and the quondam “mozo” installed himself at the head of the republic. Of all the adventurous careers recorded in the annals of South American republics, Daza’s, when written on history’s page, will perhaps stand out as the most glaring instance of successful perfidy and audacity. The secret of his success is, however, easily discovered, and proves how little suited are republican institutions to countries which, like Bolivia, contain such a mixture of races that adventurers are never at a loss to find elements of discord ready to be set in action against the respectable portion of the community. Daza, throughout his career, made it his study to keep one battalion of soldiers, well clothed, fed, and paid; the result being, that whilst the soldiers talked loudly of their “country,” they really served their chief, who thus had unlimited power at his command. The finances of Bolivia have generally had to be balanced by means of forced loans or contributions; but whether the treasury had or had not the wherewithal to pay the salaries of the ministers and the employés of the various departments, it had, somehow or other, to find pay for the first battalion; and on the shoulders of this battalion, composed entirely of uneducated Indians, Daza has ridden to the presidential palace. Installed in power, he seems, however, to be endeavouring to conduct himself in somewhat more civilized fashion than when he was a simple general of division, for one of his principal supporters (an Englishman) tells me that he rules his countrymen excellently well, and that, as to his moral character, whereas he was formerly drunk every evening, he now only allows himself to be thus overcome on three nights in the week. Let us hope, therefore, that he will go on improving in respectability until, if he stays in office long enough, he becomes a model for South American presidents. But to what a pitch of degradation must the country have sunk, when a man of Daza’s antecedents and character is elevated to the seat once honoured by occupants such as the great liberator, Simon Bolivar, and his famous coadjutor and friend, General Sucre.
A great deal of the time of the Congress, which, I believe, only sits for two or three months in the year, is always taken up in considering new schemes, which speculators are continually bringing forward with the object of breaking up Bolivia’s isolation from the civilized world. Not that I would by this be understood as saying that I consider the republic to be outside the pale of civilization but, hemmed in, as she is, by the Andes and her neighbours, Peru and Chili, on the west, and by the impenetrable swamps and morasses of the yet unexplored Gran Chaco on the east, she may with truth be said to be so secluded as almost to form a small world of her own, and will continue to do so until the magnificent route of the Amazonian watershed is accepted as the natural inlet and outlet of trade. In the Congress of 1874 most of the schemes for which new concessions or renewal of old ones were being sought, were connected with the opening up of the eastern side of Bolivia. On the Pacific side, the only enterprises are connected with the silver mines and nitrate deposits of the desert of Atacama—a district so rich in minerals, that alone it should be sufficient to form the basis of the well-being of its fortunate owners, the Bolivian nation. From La Paz many efforts have been made to conduct the trade of Bolivia, by the lake of Titicaca and Puno, to the Peruvian seaboard, but up to the present time little has been done except the granting of concessions for projected railways, although a couple of steamers have with great trouble been carried up to and launched on the lake.
The applications for concessions on the eastern side were four in number, all having for their object the construction of roads across the unknown territory which separates Bolivia from the river Paraguay. One scheme which met with a good deal of favour in Sucre, was started by a Señor Antonio Paradiz, who obtained the renewal of concessions granted so long ago as 1853, for the construction of a cart-road from Santa Cruz, viâ Chiquitos, to a port on the Paraguay, to be called Port Vargas, and to be situated about 180 miles below the Brazilian port of Curumbá. The projector of the enterprise estimated that with about £60,000 he could complete his track, establish a rural colony at the port, and place two steamers, a schooner, and sundry lighters upon the river. He secured the right to all duties that might be levied at the port, for a period of eight years. But the scheme has doubtless fallen through, for poor Señor Paradiz lost his life in his patriotic endeavour to open up a new trade-route for his country, being killed by savages in 1875, while ascending the river Paraguay, exploring for a good situation for his proposed Port Vargas.
The second scheme was propounded by Señor Miguel Suarez Arana, a Bolivian gentleman of good family. He proposed to construct two cart-roads, one from Santa Cruz to an undefined port on the Paraguay, and the other from a town called Lagunillas in the Cordillera to the same undefined port. This concessionnaire asked for two-thirds of the duties to be created at the proposed port, for a period of forty years, together with tolls, premiums, and other special advantages; but nothing was done in the matter by the Congress, and doubtless the scheme remains on record as a project only.